GERMAN LOSSES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 161, 7 June 1940, Page 7

GERMAN LOSSES

QREATER THAN CLAIMED. OLD TACTICS REVIVED. (British Official Wireless.) Received June 7, 9.50 a.m. RUGBY, June 6. The practice of concealing their casualties, which was constantly followed by Germany during the last war, is recalled in connection. with the special German communique broadcast on Tuesday, giving the German losses during the invasion of the Low Countries and Northern France at 64,238. The British estimate of the German losses in the campaign totals between 400,000 and 500,000. Such a figure would more closely corresppnd to the earlier estimates given currency in Germany itself. . On May 20 Germany was semi-offi-cially informed that “the successes of the army have not been achieved without regrettable losses. These losses, however, are. not greater than the German losses on .the Somme and the Marne in the last war.” On the same day Herr Fritsche, a director of the German Propaganda Ministry said: “You may be satisfied that the losses are smaller than the German losses in the Somme Battle in the Great War.” On May 28 the Official German News Agency warned the German people “to be preoared to hear of losses corresponding to the bitter resistance shown by the Allied Armies in France and i Artois.” I German losses in the Somme Battle alone amount to at least 660,000 killed, wounded, and missing. The Times says: “It is thus frankly impossible to reconcile Tuesday’s figures even with the warning circulated previously by the German authorities themselves. On other grounds it is certain that in any ease the German public are still far from having heaid the whole truth or anything like it. LOSS OF PERSPECTIVE. Reviewing recent American newspapers’ comment, the Manchester Guardian calls special attention to an- article in the Evening Sun of Baltimore, which suggests that current war events seem to cause people and newspapers to lose their peripective. The so-called lightning strokes and efficiency are merely the result of Hitler’s abandonment of i the ways of civilisation. ( if The writer asks why the newspapers lo not use the same formula when i kealing with the doings of ordinary ; flanks of murderers and thieves, pointL out that the police are always ; |ter than the murderers and thieves. Nvertheless, it adds these gangs are sytematieally, though perhaps slowly, napped up. • , ~•’ The Germans claim that their ariies have thrust into the heart ot Frfpce, that the enemy is retreating at 111 points, and that the fines have beei pierced at Amiens and Aillette. ■VaRIS UNDISTURBED. CLOSING OF~ SCHOOLS. V LONDON, June-6'. Whit the storm rages on the great northeft battlefront, Parisians are carrying bn calmly. The 'PVris correspondent of the Daily : Telegrapnsays that hundreds of people sat in 'oaside in cafes this afternoon enjoying fie sunshine undismayed by. the news & the German offensive. The French in 4 in the street believes that General W.ygand has succeeded in organising 'jeep defences in the interval betweenV.hc first offensive and the latest attack I - The rxewsfipers to-day advised parents to evaluate their children from Paris. When eonntrv homes rannot be found for ,th\ children the municipalities will talq charge of them. The Government (as : ordered the closing ot the elemental- schools in Paris on Saturday in cWequence of the bombings: which Vit many schools and killed many elVdren. , It is autHiritatively stated that nine-tenths ol the personnel of the Belgian Air |Force has reached France. \ : ' General Fagald, commander of the 16th French Arik Corps and one of the heroes of the|Dunkirk evacuation, has been createdV Grand Officer of the Legion of lioiiur. ■